Historic Burra - South Australia

We have passed through Burra on numerous occasions heading to somewhere else but never stopping to smell the roses. 
On our trip south from the Flinders Ranges we decided to stop and spend three days here and explore the town and its surrounding area.

We camped at the showground for $15 per night. This fee included power, water and a dump point and was located just 2 km north of town.

It was the first surveyed mining town in Australia, and by 1851, it was Australia's largest inland town thanks to the discovery of the largest copper deposit in the world.

Many of its historic buildings are still intact giving the visitor a window to the past.

The information centre as a heritage passport. It cost us $50 with our senior concessions along with a refundable $50 for a key that gives access to eight locked sites. Included is a booklet which lists another 38 sites around town. It took us two full days to cover all the sites listed.

The open cut mine produced 50,000 tonnes of copper which in the early years was transported to Port Adelaide, before being shipped to Wales for smelting and refining. In 1894 smelters were built near Burra to save on the huge transport costs.

Some of the sites which require the passport and key include:

With the influx of people and the lack of accommodation, the Miners Dugouts were dug into the banks of Burra Creek and it was estimated that around 600 were dug. A flood devastated the area and by 1860 they were virtually deserted.

The Police Lockup and Stables were erected in 1847, with the cells used until the Redruth Gaol was built in 1856.

Redruth Gaol was built in 1856 and housed 30 prisoners both male and female but then it was renovated after the prisoners were moved to another gaol and reopened to house girls and finally closing in 1922. 

The 1997 film, Breaker Morant was filmed here.

Located in Paxton Square, the row of 33 cottages were built from 1849 onwards. Malowen Lowarth Cottage has been furnished in the period.

Unicorn Brewery Cellars were built in 1873 and operated until 1902. 

Hampton Township built from 1857 housed up to 30 miners cottages. The township also contained quarries which supplied the stone for many of the buildings in Burra. It was finally abandoned in the 1960s.

The town caters for travellers with many cafes and restaurants. We enjoyed a lovely Sunday lunch at La Pecora Nera (The Black Sheep) and can highly recommend their wood-fired pizzas.

On the outskirts of town, this old homestead was used as the cover on the Midnight Oils 

"Diesel and Dust" album cover....

Towards the Flinders Ranges

We have enjoyed our week here in Streaky Bay. It's given us the chance to clean the 4wd inside and out after our trip of nearly 4000 km on dirt. 

The vans exterior cladding is a different matter. There are currently water restrictions in all the places we have visited, so it looks like it will remain like this until we return home.

We headed down the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula as far as Elliston before heading east across the middle of the peninsula through Lock and Cleve. Tonight we are spending the evening in Cowell. 

We had intended to camp at the free camp just south of town, but the road was being tarred and covered in blue metal.  As we did not want this on the van or car we opted to stay at the caravan park near the foreshore.

We dined out at the Commercial Hotel where I had a dozen oysters followed by King George whiting, while Ros had the roast of the day. The oysters were to die for but unfortunately, the whiting was a little overcooked and dry.

From here we headed up the remainder of the west coast towards Port Augusta before turning north towards Quorn where we stopped for a late morning tea at one of the many cafes.

Continuing further north we stopped at the Kanyaka historic site for some photos. At one stage the station was one of the largest sheep stations in the southern Flinders Ranges.

We were now heading to Rawnsley Park Station to catch up with Ros's sister Leone and her husband Rick. It's our first visit here even though we have been to the Flinders on numerous occasions. 

On our last evening, we booked into the Woolshed Restaurant for the most amazing dinner and live entertainment. Ros and I chose a lamb tasting plate as our main course made up of Rawnsley's own lamb. 

Towards Streaky Bay

We left New Norcia on a very cold morning at just nine degrees. Our drove took us south along the Great Northern Highway for 40 odd kilometres before heading through Toodyay and onto Northam where we refuelled and topped up our water tanks.

We continued south to the lovely town of York. We drove through the town centre with its lovely old buildings, and it is now in the memory banks for a future visit where we can spend three or four days exploring.

Our plan tonight was to camp at Gorge Rock just south-east of Corrigin but because it was still quite early in the afternoon we decided to head towards Hyden and camp at the Wave Rock caravan park. All the sites were on dirt and the vast majority were not level but sloping towards the front.

We did the usual touristy things like climbing the rock and taking photos before retreating
back to the van and enjoying a few happy hour drinks. 

Ros prepared a lovely pasta meal with salami and olives before we settled back to watch some TV before retiring. There was no access unless you had a satellite dish and I was really surprised ours was able to receive a signal with such a large tree in our way.

A late start for us this morning after Ros completed a couple of loads of washing. Today we were taking the Hyden to Norseman Road. Its 295 km long with the first 44 km bitumen and the remainder a good quality dirt road. There is mine along this road and that probably has something to do with the quality of the surface of the road. 

It's also part of the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Trail with sixteen designated stopping places showcasing aspects of each place. One of these was the State Barrier Fence that was previously known as the rabbit-proof fence and was constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits from entering pastoral lands from the east.

We arrived at McDermid Rock just on 12:30 and decided we would spend the evening here. After lunch, we climbed the rock and took some photos before sitting in the shade and reading for the remainder of the afternoon.
We thought that we would have the place to ourselves but around 4:00 several camper trailers followed by two vans and someone towing a boat with the tents in the back turned up for the evening.

Eleven degrees inside the van this morning at 6:30 with the sky overcast and a strong wind blowing from the west. We left our site with just 106 km to Norseman. We stopped briefly to take a photo of Lake Johnston which appeared to be totally dry. It would make a very nice camp if the lake were full.

The remainder of the road was in a great condition like it had been on the previous day. First point of call was to refuel for $1.50 cpl before purchasing groceries from the local IGA, then into a local cafe for cakes and coffee.

Our camp this evening was at the Baxter rest area with a days total of 420 km. We found a spot about half a kilometre from the highway that had been used to store blue metal used on the highway. 

Another peaceful evening with just nine degrees inside the van this morning and a slight westerly blowing. I cannot believe our second day will again be with a tail wind.

We stopped at two locations to take photos as we continued east. 

Unfortunately the photo of the Bunda Cliffs below was the best we could manage with the location of the sun so early in the morning.

Our site tonight was 500 km further on and 70 km east of the border in an area on the northern side of the highway and best of all we had the whole place to ourselves. Again we were able to get far back from the road with only minimal noise from passing trucks during the night.

We left at 9:30 and 90 km later filled up at the Nullarbor Roadhouse for $1.90 cpl. Our intention was to camp somewhere before Ceduna this evening, but we made such good time that we made it to Smoky Bay. We are in the caravan park near the water and there are only about ten other groups camped here at present. 

We spent the afternoon checking out this small town with its quaint fibro shacks lining the foreshore, but there were also some new quite expensive looking two story homes also overlooking the sea.

With just 70 km to drive today we left just on 10 am. We were off to camp at the Streaky Bay Islands caravan park. Its a new park with large sites and lovely amenities but its very exposed to the weather. Its also 7.5 km out of the Streaky Bay township and it has very patchy internet access. We booked for two nights with the choice to stay for more. 

We lunched at the Streaky Bay pub for lunch on our first day and the King George Whiting was magnificent.

On our first evening the skies darkened and the wind increased but then died down and we thought that the bad weather had passed us by, but it returned later that evening with the worst conditions between 1 and 4 am. Wind gusts of more than 70 km/h buffeted the van for the remainder of the night and into the next day. 

We decided to move into the Foreshore van park right in Streaky Bay that would afford us more protection from the wind and boost our internet service.